A demonstrator wearing an antiestablishment Guy Fawkes mask stands next to riot police guarding the Greek Parliament during an antiausterity rally in central Athens on Sunday.

Photo: Petros Giannakouris, Associated Press

A demonstrator wearing an antiestablishment Guy Fawkes mask stands...

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Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras delivers a speech from the podium, left, during a parliament meeting for vote on 2013 country's budget in Athens, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012. The vote by lawmakers on the 2013 budget which would once more cut pensions and salaries so Greece can qualify for its next vital batch of rescue loans. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Athens -- Greek lawmakers approved the country's 2013 austerity budget early Monday, an essential step in Greece's efforts to persuade its international creditors to unblock a vital rescue loan installment without which the country will go bankrupt.

The budget passed by a 167-128 vote in the 300-member Parliament. It came days after a separate bill of deep spending cuts and tax hikes for the next two years squeaked through with a narrow majority following severe disagreements among the three parties in the governing coalition.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras pledged that the spending cuts will be the last Greeks have to endure.

"Just four days ago, we voted the most sweeping reforms ever in Greece," he said. "The sacrifices (in the earlier bill and the budget) will be the last. Provided, of course, we implement all we have legislated."

Athens says that with the passage of the two bills, the next loan installment, worth about $40 billion, should be disbursed. Without it, the government has said it will run out of cash on Friday.

Finance ministers from the 17-nation eurozone are meeting in Brussels later Monday, with Greece high on the agenda. However, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has indicated it is unlikely that the ministers will decide on the disbursement at that meeting.

"We all ... want to help Greece, but we won't be put under pressure," Schaeuble told the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Hours before the vote, 15,000 people converged outside the Parliament in a peaceful demonstration. The crowd was far smaller than the 80,000 people who protested last Wednesday's austerity bill vote. That demonstration degenerated into violent clashes with riot police.

Greece is mired in a deep recession heading into its sixth year. It has been relying on international bailout loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010.